Boy's Death Detailed

Source: Father Hid The Body Behind A Shed

August 30, 1989|By DAVID CHERNICKY Staff Writer

Arthur D. Jarrell hid the body of his 8-year-old son behind a shed in the family's back yard last Wednesday and then helped his frantic wife in her search for the boy, according to sources familiar with the case.

After she left in a family pickup truck to look for Sam, Jarrell later told police, he put the boy in his red Chevette and drove to a wooded area near a Hampton shopping center where Sam would be found dead by a passer-by the next morning, the sources said.

Investigators speculate that Sam, bludgeoned with a claw hammer on the back of the head, may still have been alive at the beginning of the ride, before being stabbed repeatedly with a fillet knife, the sources said.

Police had been looking at several scenarios, including the possibility that Sam had been killed by a stranger, when they began to focus attention on the father.

As the investigation progressed, police began to take note of inconsistencies in Jarrell's statements. His evasive answers deepened suspicions and contradicted statements given by his wife, sources said.

Certain facts and evidence from the crime scene also began to sway police away from the murder-by-stranger theory, sources said.

"The child was not sexually molested or his clothes disturbed. And there was a second weapon," a source said.

In most killings by a stranger, a single weapon is used, he said.

Initially, Arlene Jarrell thought her son had repeated a prank in which he would write a note telling the parents he was running away from their home in Newport News. "He would write a runaway note, then hide in the house somewhere," sources said.

Police have said the boy was last seen alive at 5:20 p.m. Wednesday.

Police believe that during the next hour, Sam was struck on the head and his body hidden behind the shed.

About an hour later, Arthur and Arlene Jarrell walked out of the house together calling for the boy.

Shortly thereafter, Jarrell instructed his wife to take the truck and told her he would leave in the Chevette in the opposite direction, a source said.

Sources said Jarrell then put his son's body in the car and drove it to the woods beside the Farm Fresh shopping center on Mercury Boulevard where he repeatedly stabbed the boy and left his body.

Mrs. Jarrell called police at 8:14 p.m. to report her son had run away. In the following hours, the search expanded as more neighbors, police and tracking dogs scoured the area.

Several hours after the body was found, police questioned the father. In the interview, officers learned that Jarrell said that he had last seen Sam playing with a hammer in the back yard, sources said.

Jarrell told police his son had a hammer in his hand and was playing with a lawn mower, according to the sources.

Police made note of the mention of a hammer since they were looking for a blunt weapon, a source said.

In a follow-up interview that lasted several hours Friday afternoon, Jarrell confessed to the killing, asking if he did commit the murder, could he still attend his son's funeral, a source said.

Jarrell then led police to the hammer and knife, which had been thrown into a trash container behind the Hub Furniture store near the Farm Fresh, sources said. He was charged with murder and remains in the Hampton City Jail.

Jarrell had been the dominant figure in the family until his wife had begun to improve herself by going back to school and losing weight, several sources said.

"She had started blossoming. As she started turning her life around, growing more independent, I think he felt threatened with that domination and couldn't cope," a source said.

In recent weeks, the couple had separated and was living apart, a development that apparently was eating away at Jarrell, the sources said.

"It looks to me like he did not feel he was in control of his family, but in particular his wife, and the only way to regain control was to make her dependent on him," the source said.

On Friday, the couple will have been married 13 years.

Jarrell, 36, a mail courier for Newport News Shipbuilding, was assigned a court-appointed attorney, Thomas L. Hunter of Hampton, on Tuesday, said James P. Bohnaker, an assistant Commonwealth's attorney who attended the closed hearing. Jarrell will appear in court again Sept. 28 for a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to try him in Circuit Court.

Jarrell, wearing a green jail jumpsuit, said nothing during the hearing, according to Bohnaker. Afterward, he was led out of court in handcuffs and shackles and into a waiting sheriff's van. Jarrell looked down and didn't speak to reporters outside.